Westley, Westley, Westley

Westley is our child that always keeps us busy. Ben always says it is okay to lose the battles as long as he wins the war. Well, Westley is not only winning the battles, he is also winning the war. He climbs on EVERYTHING, including laying up next to the TV. We have made MANY adjustments to the TV stand with no avail. The only way to win the war there is to put the TV on the ceiling!
Westley also climbs out of shopping carts, and on to counters.

Another war Ben is losing against Westley is the "Keep Westley in Bed War." He was doing fine for a while, but then he starting climbing over the bed rail and going up to "visit" Jenna. He never gets out of bed at nap, but at night he always goes up to Jenna's bed. We have tried different parenting ideas to keep him in (stay by door, walk him silently back to bed, etc) and those only work until Jenna comes to bed. Ben has also tried many barriers to keep him in bed, rails, blankets, nets, baby gates, even thicker nets... But Westley tears it all down or climbs over them. So maybe he just needs to go back to his crib? No! He NEVER climbed in or out of it before, but now he climbs in and plays then gets out all on his own. Personally I think at night he just wants to play with Jenna. He even will stay in his bed awake for over an hour waiting for Jenna to come in and then go up to her bed as soon as she does. Just let him sleep up there? Well, she will go to sleep, but he still plays! Plus now she tells us he bugs her and she does not want him up there. Although we discovered she is part of the problem by looking over the edge of her bed and talking to him. Of course that makes him want to go up and visit. He is soooo overtired now because this have been going on for a week. Tomorrow I will try to put him to bed ridiculously early and see what happens. Well I did that, and he got out of his bed and knocked on the door a couple times, but then gave up and went to sleep. This has worked two nights in a row. And by putting him in bed early he is asleep in time for Jenna to go to bed. He even came out this morning without bugging Jenna first. Also, Jenna let Westley have her beloved stuffed animal Buster.

So maybe he is a good climber, but he still cannot hear well out of one ear. Yes, that's right, he has soooo much goop in his ears that it has blocked the tube that is supposed to drain it. We have been using drops to unblock the tube. It did not work the first time so we are trying again. (It might not have worked the first time because I was not good about forcing him to stay on his side for 5 minutes after putting the drops in. As you can guess getting him to stay still is not easy.) Westley has also just qualified for speech therapy through Babies Can't Wait, the government sponsored therapy program. We will find out soon what exactly will happen, how often etc. During his evaluation they asked me if he colors with crayons on paper? My thought... does the kitchen floor count?Yes, the boy is into everything; even after all the extra baby proofing. He gets out every toy and every book every day. We spend 45 minutes picking up stuff everyight. Yeah sure he helps, but as soon as I need to go get Charlotte for a minute he dumps it all out again. Today while I was putting Charlotte to bed he apparently had some grapes.
Although as you can see he did not eat many. He took them all off the steams and then scattered (more likely threw) them all over the kitchen floor. Between him and taking care of a new baby I am dying! Just keeping the kids alive and the house looking the same as it did at the beginning of the day is becoming an impossible task.